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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Depression in housing

As the economy revs back to life, with signs of hiring on the horizon, the housing market is being left behind like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone.” In the past few years, we’ve all been careful to choose our words carefully, not calling it a recession until it fit the technical definition and avoiding any inappropriate use of the “D” word —Depression. Things were bad but the broader economy never reached Depression territory. The housing market, on the other hand, just crossed that threshold. Home values have fallen 26 percent since their peak in June 2006, worse than the 25.9-percent decline seen during the Depression years between 1928 and 1933, Zillow reported.